A portrait document is understood in the art to be a document whose upright image, when viewed while holding the document sheet vertical, causes the sheet's long-dimension edges to extend vertically, and its short-dimension edges to extend horizontally. For example, for a portrait document on 8.times.11 inch paper, the 11 inch edges extend vertically and the 8 inch edges extend horizontally.
A landscape document is understood in the art to be a document whose upright image, when viewed while holding the document sheet vertical, causes the sheet's short-dimension edges to extend vertically, and its long-dimension edges to extend horizontally. Thus, for a landscape document on 8.times.11 inch paper, the 8 inch edges extend vertically and the 11 inch edges extend horizontally.
When multi-sheet portrait and landscape document sets are corner-bound, it is usual that the sets be bound at the same common corner. Usually, this common-corner is the upper left-hand corner of the set, this corner being defined as the sets are held vertically, with the image in its correct reading orientation.
As the term "common-corner", as used herein, it will be the upper left hand corner of the set, this corner being defined as the set is held vertically with the image in right-reading orientation. However, within the spirit and scope of the invention, the common-corner can be any of the four corners of the sets, so long as the same image-relative corner is bound for both type of sets.
Printers typically process blank sheets of paper as the sheet moves with the same leading-edge sheet orientation while producing both types of sets. For example, the sheets may move through the portrait/landscape print station with either a short sheet edge as the leading edge, or with a long sheet edge as the leading edge. In the description of preferred embodiments that follows, the sheets move with a long edge as the leading edge. However, the spirit and scope of the invention is not to be limited thereto.
Prior art printers do not use one, fixed-position binding device to common-corner bind both types of sets. That is, either two binders were provided in the prior art, or one binder moves between the ends of the set's leading edge, depending upon the type of set being bound.
For example, consider FIG. 1. This figure first shows the top view of a prior art vertical-stack set 10 that has been printed, either simplex or duplex, in the portrait mode of operation of a reproduction device such as a printer. If this set comprises simplex pages 1 through N, page N is printed first, and page N is then placed on an accumulator tray with its image facing upward. The last sheet of set 10 to be printed is page 1. This sheet is then placed as the top sheet of set 10, image facing upward. In this example, page 1 has an arrow printed thereon in portrait orientation, the letters "L" and "R" showing the left-to-right reading direction of the portrait image.
All of the individual sheets of set 10 pass through a print station (not shown) with their long edge 11 as the leading edge. Common-corner binding of set 10 requires that a fastener device, for example a stitcher or a stapler, be placed to cooperate with the upper left hand corner 12 of set 10.
FIG. 1 also shows the top view of a prior art vertical-stack set 13 of sheets that are printed in the landscape orientation. The first or top sheet of this set (i.e. set page 1) also has an arrow printed thereon. The sheets of set 14 also move through the print station with the same long edge 11 as the sheet's leading edge. Common-corner binding of set 13, however, requires that a fastener be placed at upper left hand corner 14 of the set. Note that corner 14 is at the opposite leading-edge corner of the sheet from the leading edge corner 12 that was used for portrait set 10.
FIG. 1 is exemplary of the prior art, where in order to common-corner bind both a portrait set 10 and a landscape set 13, it was necessary to either provide two binding devices, one located at each of the leading-edge corners 12, 14, or in the alternative, a single, movable, binding device was provided, and the binding device was moved to leading edge corner 12 when portrait sets were being produced, and was moved to leading-edge corner 14 when landscape sets were being produced.
FIG. 2 shows a portrait set and a landscape set that have been printed in accordance with the method and apparatus of the present invention. This figure is the top view of a vertical-stack set 15 of sheets that have been printed, either simplex or duplex, in the portrait mode in accordance with an embodiment of the invention. Assuming the sheets are printed simplex, page 1 of set 15 again has an arrow printed thereon in portrait orientation, and the image faces upward. The sheets of set 15 move through the print station (see 34 of FIG. 3) with long edge 16 as the sheet's leading edge. Commom-corner binding requires that a fastening device, such as a stitcher, a stapler, a corner adhesive means or a punch/rivet means be placed at upper left hand corner 17 of portrait set 15.
FIG. 2 also shows the top view of a vertical-stack set 18 of simplex sheets that are printed in the landscape mode. However, in this case the top sheet of the set is the set's Nth sheet. This top sheet again has an arrow printed thereon in landscape orientation, and the image of the Nth sheet, as well as the landscape images of all of the simplex sheets 1 through N, reside in set 18 with their images facing downward. In FIG. 2 the image on the top sheet of set 18 is shown dotted to signify that the simplex image is facing downward.
The sheets of landscape set 18 also move through the station with the same long sheet edge 16 as the sheet's leading edge. However, all sheets of set 18 are inverted prior to being stacked in the accumulator tray. As a result, sometime prior to stacking, sheet edge 16 becomes the sheet's trailing edge.
The sheet that corresponds to page 1 of landscape set 18 is on the bottom of the set, image facing downward. Common-corner binding of landscape set 18 now allows the same fastener to be used, located at the same upper left hand corner 17 as was used for portrait set 15. When landscape set 18 is lifted and held vertically for reading, it is now found that leading edge corner 17 of set 18 is at the upper left hand corner of the set, and the set is common-corner bound in the same manner as portrait set 15.
The above description of FIG. 2 relates to the use of a print station to selectively print either portrait or landscape simplex images on the same side of sheets that come from a supply bin containing a stack of blank sheets. For example, a xerographic reproduction device may operate to feed sheets, one at a time, to a transfer station from a stack of blank sheets. At the transfer station toner is transferred to one side of the sheet, for example the top surface of the sheet. This type of exemplary xerographic device may be either a copier or a printer.
By definition, a copier is a device that reproduces visual images that are carried by the surface(s) of original document sheets, whereas a printer is a device that reproduces electronic-signal images that are supplied to a printhead by a data processor or the like.
In accordance with the invention, the individual sheets of portrait set 15 and landscape set 18 are relatively inverted, for example the sheets of set 15 are not inverted whereas the sheets of set 18 are inverted, prior to being stacked and presented for corner binding by the fastener that is located at corner 17.
The scope and content of the present invention is to provide common-corner binding of both landscape and portrait sets, using only one binding device that is mounted at a fixed position at a location(s) where the sets are accumulated for binding.
As those skilled in the art will readily appreciate, the invention is useful both where a single accumulator tray is used, and where a multi-bin collator is used to accumulate the sets, for example. The term "accumulator means or tray" as used herein is therefor understood to encompass all such means.
In addition, those skilled in the art will understand that the invention is applicable to reproduction devices that feed paper through the print station short edge first, and to reproduction devices that print an image on the top and/or the bottom surface of a sheet. Another printing/sheet-feeding variable that can be adapted to the present invention is the reading direction of the image that is printed on the sheet's surface.
Thus, while the present invention will be described with reference to a reproduction device in which paper is fed to the print station with a long edge as the leading edge, and the image is then printed on the top surface of the sheet in a stated right-reading direction, the spirit and scope of the invention is not to be limited thereto. Those skilled in the art will readily appreciate that these parameters of the printing process and the sheet feeding process can be varied to produce the same new and unusual result that is achieved by the embodiments of the invention as will be described, and such variations are to be considered to be within the spirit and scope of the invention.
The prior art provides various means for the corner binding of document sets. However, the problem of common-corner binding of portrait/landscape sets by a single non-movable binding means remains unsolved in the prior art.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,687,191 shows a nested-bin sorter wherein the bins move apart to allow a stapler to move into the bin, to corner bind the set therein. No attempt is made to common-corner bind portrait and landscape sets. U.S. Pat. No. 4,681,310 is similar in construction and arrangement.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,083,550, 4,281,920, 4,329,046 and 4,564,185 also show attempts of workers in this art to combine set production and set binding. However, here again no attempt is made to common-corner bind portrait and landscape sets.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,238,066 teaches an arrangement to achieve corner set registration so as to bind the set with a stitcher, stapler or punch. No attempt is made to common-corner bind portrait and landscape sets.
When the present invention is applied to a copier device, it may be necessary to handle the original documents in a particular manner in order to achieve the correct page sequence and image orientation to achieve common-corner binding of both portrait and landscape sets. U.S. Pat. No. 4,650,313 is exemplary of means for handling original document pages to achieve a desired page sequence.
An object of the present invention is to provide the selective production of common-corner bound portrait or landscape document sets by feeding printed sheets from a print station to set accumulator means in a manner to stack portrait-printed and landscape-printed sheets with common-corner orientation. A corner binding means is then provided at a location that is coincident with the common-corner of the sets.
It is another object of the present invention is to provide for the production of common-corner bound portrait or landscape document sets by a print station that is capable of printing portrait or landscape images on a given surface of blank sheets. Sheets are fed from a supply of blank sheets with the same edge orientation for both portrait and landscape printing. Set accumulator means is located down stream from the print station, and sheets are fed to the set accumulator means in a manner to stack portrait-printed and landscape-printed sheets with common-corner orientation. A corner binding means is then provided at a location coincident with this common-corner.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a method for operating a reproduction device, and to provide a reproducing apparatus such as an electrophotographic printer or copier, for producing common-corner bound sets, regardless of whether the set has been produced in a portrait mode of operation or in a landscape mode of operation. In this way, a binding means may be mounted at one corner of a set accumulator tray, i.e. the binding means need not move from one set corner to another in order to bind the set at the correct corner, regardless of whether the set has been produced in a portrait mode of operation, or a landscape mode of operation.
These and other objects and advantages of the invention will be apparent to those skilled in the art upon reference to the following detailed description of the invention, wherein reference is made to the drawing.